


Undying

by jusrecht



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-04
Updated: 2011-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 09:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, there was a prince who fell in love with a maid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Undying

3.

Once upon a time, there was a prince who fell in love with a maid.

He was the heir to his father’s throne and she the blacksmith’s daughter, and their story, one might guess, could have no happy ending but that in the depth of dreams. They passed each other in the castle’s hall, shared a timid glance, and then went on their separate ways. If he dared step closer and brush his fingertips against the back of her hand, then it was a spark that would immediately disappear at his father’s icy glare. If she dared raise her head and offer him a minute smile, then it was a snowflake that would soon melt at the sight of yet another golden-haired princess, fit to be his queen.

He bore the duty. She bore the heartbreak.

.

“Will you marry me?”

She stared at him. There was drunken fervour in his eyes, in his breath; this, she thought—sad, disappointed, disgusted, all crushed into one—was a moment’s passion born of intoxication, nothing more. The arrangement had failed, ended with neither a bride nor a coalition between kingdoms, and this guilt ate away at him like maggots to a rotten core. He was always a prince, first and foremost.

“Please?”

She wrenched the goblet and the jug of ale from his unresisting fingers and turned away.

“No,” she told him.

 

–

 

2.

When he kissed her, he tasted freedom.

When she kissed him, she tasted impossible dreams.

Before the king, they touched reality.

.

“I will marry her. She is the only one to be my wife.”

The king was outraged and he ordered her flogged, then burned for witchcraft. The prince spilled insults and oaths, all reason abandoned when he saw her dragged toward the door by the same hard-faced soldiers who had laughed at his jest but this morning.

“I will abdicate my right to the throne if that is your wish! I don’t want it if she isn’t to be my queen!”

“No,” she cried then, her voice strong—for she could be strong and no sacrifice was too great for the moment when he would be crowned Camelot’s king. “I will not marry you. I will not marry you for this.”

There was such pain of betrayal in his eyes that tears flowed from hers. He was now on his knees, pride crumbling into wrecked pleas that nevertheless went unheard, unheeded.

That night, she spent her nightmare in the dungeon, her body broken and the waiting scaffold just outside her window.

That night, the kingdom faced an invasion.

 

–

 

1.

The king’s death was lost amidst tumults of battle, simply another loss which all too soon blurred into successions of many. The castle did not succumb, but with each attempt at her gates, she was weakened. After a week, defeat was knocking at their door and everyone knew they would not last another day, with food and water so scarce and morale so low.

Just before dawn, the prince gathered them in the courtyard and shared the last of the supplies. Then he said to his knights, soldiers, and people alike: “If you wish to live, then you will have to win.”

Their roars shook even the unshakable castle walls.

.

“I will come with you.”

With every step, her back still stung with the memory of each whiplash, etched deep into her skin. He regarded her in silence, surprise long since turning cold with anguish.

“You cannot fight.”

“I am a blacksmith’s daughter.”

“You are a blacksmith’s daughter,” he acknowledged, and his voice, she noticed with a pang, was that of a king; grief had hardened him where nothing else could. “But you are also my future queen and I will not have you harmed.”

A measure of her astonishment and displeasure must have shown on her countenance, for he swiftly amended, “Of course, if you will have me.”

She said nothing for a long time, and then, “I can be of some help.”

The prince shook his head. “The people need guiding, yet I cannot be elsewhere but at the front,” he told her and his eyes made the entreaty his lips would not. “There is no one else I can trust.”

The very vulnerability of it made her breath catch and her heart twist in her chest. “Very well,” she agreed. “I will stay—as one who cares, not your future queen.”

She saw the pain her words had caused flit across his face, but it soon disappeared, replaced once more by the unfamiliar gravity. “As you wish.”

He turned around to leave, but she stopped him, her fingers firm around his wrist. “Come back alive,” she whispered, “and I may be.”

 

–

 

0.

Victory was both a celebration and a lament. It came with blood and death and a river of sacrifice, and she had seen too many battles to think it a cause of rejoicing. But her heart still made a sudden leap in her chest at the sight of him, not unscathed, not unharmed, and yet he sat tall astride his warhorse, victory in the glint of his eyes and dignity in his kingly poise. She stood before the sick tent, the smell of death and untended wounds still about her—and still he alighted from his horse to approach her, to take her hand and kiss the back of her wrist.

“My promise, lady.”

She touched his face, the scar left there by the tip of an enemy’s sword. The war haunted him still, a black ghost that robbed him of the child she had once known and cherished. He returned a different man, and though she mourned for the child, the man made her proud.

“Arthur Pendragon, will you marry me?”

His sombreness broke into a smile, the child hidden under the man, and she knew then, this story had a happy ending after all.


End file.
